# What all have you done with Ruby?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-all-have-you-done-with-ruby/121155>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [November 24, 2007, 5:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-all-have-you-done-with-ruby/121155 "2007-11-24T17:43:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sam)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2007, 5:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-all-have-you-done-with-ruby/121155/1 "2007-11-24T17:43:31Z")

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Being a new Ruby user, and a brand new programmer (which isn’t working  
out so well), I am curious as to what all everyone here is using Ruby  
for. I am looking for some ideas as to what kind of programs I should  
attempt to make so I though it would be cool if we could all discuss  
what we have made with Ruby.

Thanks,  
Sam

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**Author:** ![sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sam)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-all-have-you-done-with-ruby/121155/2 "2007-11-25T00:11:36Z")

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> Being a new Ruby user, and a brand new programmer (which isn’t working  
> out so well), I am curious as to what all everyone here is using Ruby  
> for. I am looking for some ideas as to what kind of programs I should  
> attempt to make

You need some small problems for practice? You could try some Ruby  
Quiz problems.

[http://www.rubyquiz.com](http://www.rubyquiz.com)

It sounds like you also have another problem - no reason to be a  
programmer in the first place. Why are you learning how to program? Is  
there something that you want to create, or some problem that you wish  
to solve, for which you think programming might help?

> so I though it would be cool if we could all discuss  
> what we have made with Ruby.

Look around - this is already happening. Most of the conversations on  
this mailing list are about some project that someone is working on.  
No need to ask people to do what they are already doing - just join  
in.

–  
There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to  
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the  
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious  
deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.

```
                - C.A.R. Hoare -

```

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**Author:** ![sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sam)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2007, 6:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-all-have-you-done-with-ruby/121155/3 "2007-11-25T06:55:32Z")

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“Sam” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote in message  
news:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid…

> Being a new Ruby user, and a brand new programmer (which isn’t working  
> out so well), I am curious as to what all everyone here is using Ruby  
> for. I am looking for some ideas as to what kind of programs I should  
> attempt to make so I though it would be cool if we could all discuss  
> what we have made with Ruby.

```
Most of my Ruby programs are for administering data of some kind.

```

Sadly, I can’t write a Ruby program to cook my breakfast. Some examples  
that I can think of, off the top of my mind:

- Fixing my iTunes library so that all proper nouns have their  
prepositions  
in lower case.
- Finding all duplicate files in a directory
- Writing a program that can perform a command-line action on every file  
in  
a directory. Used for many things, such as renaming all images from my  
digital camera from DSCF0001, DSCF0002, etc… to company\_picnic\_01,  
company\_picnic\_01, etc…
- Renaming all my manga files and collecting them into .tar files by  
chapter  
and then properly naming the .tar files, including the chapter name.  
Yes,  
I’m anal retentive, so perhaps Ruby is more useful to me than to most.  
If  
you don’t know what manga is, I suggest looking it up on the wikipedia!
- I scraped all the music information of my iTunes library from  
MusicBrainz  
so that I can figure out what year all my songs came out in. Now I can  
listen to all my music from the eighties, nineties, or specifically

1. U  
can’t touch this!

- I programmed a psychological experiment to perform on my friends.  
Many of  
them even stayed friends…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sam)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2007, 3:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-all-have-you-done-with-ruby/121155/4 "2007-11-25T03:49:42Z")

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Quoth Eric L.:

> It sounds like you also have another problem - no reason to be a  
> in.  
> There was also at least one thread with a very similar name and theme  
> earlier  
> on this mailing list (I imagine within the last month or so, but  
> certainly  
> within the last three).

Regards,

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**Author:** ![sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@sam](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sam)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2007, 1:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-all-have-you-done-with-ruby/121155/5 "2007-11-25T13:20:42Z")

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On Nov 24, 11:50 pm, “Just Another Victim of the Ambient M.”

> U can’t touch this!

Heh! [xkcd: 90's Flowchart](http://xkcd.com/210/)

🙂

Regards,  
Jordan